British Modern Military History Society

WE are delighted to have been able to resume live meetings at Woodcote village hall but we will also be continuing our monthly Zoom talks.

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, October 4 at 7.30pm via Zoom when John Greenacre will speak on “Army aviation in Northern Ireland”.

In 1969 the prolonged spate of violence that broke out in Northern Ireland and became known as “The Troubles” was countered militarily by Operation Banner, which would run until 2006.

The Army Air Corps made a crucial contribution to Operation Banner, providing helicopters and fixed wing aircraft that carried out intelligence gathering and surveillance, moved troops around “bandit country” and fought back against terrorist groups.

A generation of Army Air Corps aircrew and ground crew cut their teeth in Northern Ireland and the lessons they learned were carried forward to operations in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan.

John Greenacre was commissioned into the British Army in 1988 and served as a reconnaissance and surveillance helicopter pilot with the Army Air Corps in the UK, Northern Ireland, Balkans, the Gulf, Kenya, Canada, Falkland Islands and Germany before he retired in 2011.

He gained his PhD in history from Leeds University in 2009 with a thesis on the development of British airborne forces.

He currently lectures in history at the University of Suffolk and is an active battlefield tour guide across Europe.

The following meeting will be held at Woodcote village hall on Wednesday, October 12 at 7.30pm and will feature a talk called “A British hospital ship at war” by Nicci Pugh.

This inspiring, informative and fascinating presentation illustrates the role of a modern-day floating hospital ship working 8,000 miles from home in the South Atlantic Ocean during the Falklands War.

The second half of this talk relates to the work of the South Atlantic Medal Association, the tri-service charity for veterans of the Falklands War.

This section includes excellent and unusual images of life on the Falkland Islands today, including some of the rare black-browed albatross nesting off the remote West Falkland Islands.

Nicci is the author of White Ship — Red Crosses (2010), which covers the many aspects of how the wider history of international hospital ships has developed over the centuries.

Her father was Capt Dick Pugh CBE RN, a Second World War tiger moth and swordfish Fleet Air Arm pilot of some renown, who served in the Royal Navy from 1916 to 1950.